'Voracious' Jumping Worms Can Leap 1 Foot In The Air, Destroy Soil

NEW YORK — Earthworms are good to have around in your garden because they leave the soil better than when they wriggled in — except when they destroy it.

That is the case in at least 34 states — including New York — that have reported an invasive, soil nutrient-gobbling jumping earthworm that can leap a foot into the air.

Yes, jumping. And yes, a foot in the air.

These invasive Asian jumping worms — their scientific name is Amynthas agrestis — earn their nickname and their reputation. They’re also called Alabama jumpers, Jersey wrigglers, wood eel, crazy worms, snake worms and crazy snake worms.

Their common names are descriptive of “the way they thrash around,” USDA Forest Service soil scientist Mac Callaham said in a post last month on the agency’s website. “They can flip themselves a foot off the ground.”

Beneficial earthworms aerate the soil and help prep it for growth. But once jumping worms have had their way in your dirt, it will have the consistency of coffee grounds — and be about as useful for growing things as the dredges from the morning pot of joe.

The jumping variety is especially concerning, researchers working with the Cornell University Cooperative Extension said, because they consume the organic matter that supplies vital nutrients for plants more rapidly than other earthworms.

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And the jumping worms grow faster and can infest soils at high densities, researchers at Cornell said. Besides severely damaging roots of plants in nurseries, gardens and forests, they help spread invasive plant species because they disturb the soil.

Even though many worm species don't need a mate to reproduce, jumping worms are more aggressive and can, therefore, overtake existing worm populations quickly.

They Engineer Their Own Ecosystems

Jumping worms are wreaking havoc with soil and, ultimately, the circle of life, Callaham told Sarah Farmer, a science writer for the Forest Service’s Southern Research Station in Asheville, North Carolina.

Jumping worms expend a lot of energy, which they fuel by eating everything in their path. That includes leaf litter, the first layer of soil on the forest floor — home not only to many unseen tiny creatures but also an important source of nutrients plants need to sprout and grow.

All earthworms feed on leaf litter, but jumping worms are “voracious,” Callaham said.

“Soil is the foundation of life — and Asian jumping worms change that,” the soil scientist continued. “In fact, earthworms can have such huge impacts that they’re able to actually engineer the ecosystems around them.”

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It’s a conundrum for scientists, who say they need to learn more about the ecology of jumping worms before prescribing a management plan. The intelligence on them so far by about two dozen scientists was collected last year in a research paper detailing the second wave of jumping worm infestation in North America.

“We cannot really manage them once they are here,” Andrea Davalos, an assistant professor of biology at State University of New York-Cortland and one of the authors of the research paper, told Upstate New York.

“There’s no appropriate method to get rid of them,” said Davalos, who is a member of New York’s Jumping Worm Outreach, Research & Management collaborative.

What she and others have found in New York is that while jumping worms are widespread from Long Island to Ontario, Canada, their colonies are “very patchy.” A colony of up to 30 jumping worms can live in a 2.6-square-foot garden plot, but a similarly sized space nearby may have none.

How To Spot Them

According to scientists, the worms are 1.5 to 8 inches long and are smooth, glossy gray or brown. They get their names because they thrash wildly and jump when handled, as if they were a snake being threatened. They have a narrow band, which is smooth to their bodies — not raised — that completely encircles them.

The best time to find them is late August or September when they are at their largest size.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said that jumping worms are a prohibited invasive species and cannot be knowingly possessed with the intent to sell, import, purchase, transport or introduce.

If you see jumping worms, report your sightings to www.nyimapinvasives.org.